We who have no LEUP should start clustering 62 gram motors. Then when we have that down, we should start staging the clusters. Maybe we can use just as much APCP as we were before the rule. Then we can show the ATF what stupid idiots they are. Heck we could stock pile our 50 to 100 lbs of 62 gram motors in our garages without a storage box.
KT
Yep the gov has no clue, everyday our freedoms are taken away, the gov wants to control your life sort of how they used to do it in the Soviet Union in way its kinda funny. a country is only as powerful as the people it govners fear them, a country is powerless when its people people fear its government, the more fear our own governmet puts in its people the more they will look to gain thier freedoms back.
now if you store those 50 to 100 62 gramm motors in a box it would be ok but if you put a lock on that box then you might as well be put on americas most wanted, soon the only way one will have thier freedom back is to rebel but then the media will label you a traitor and right now being traitor dosnt look so bad.
In the early 1980's before there were larger motors on the market megaclustering was SOP. I personally saw a successful flight of an 86 F motor cluster and an unsuccessful flight of a two-stage rocket with a total of 171 F and G motors(Helix 1 and 2, Smoke Creek Nevada).
The problem is ignition. Those rockets used a lot of thermalite fuse which was readily available back then. Now it requires a LEUP and is scarce and aging.
Cluster ignition of composite motors without using regulated items is the problem. ATF is trying to limit clustering by requiring LEUP's to buy ematches. Green fuse doesn't work.
I dunno how, but I'm confident someone in the hobby will find a way.
But the cost per newton-second will be higher in clusters.
+McG+
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
All that would do is get the JBGTS to move the line yet again, until we're limited to B6-4s...
Somewhere in there, the law of deminishing returns comes into play as well. When it does at what motor size/weight I don't know.
A few weekends ago, I clustered 6 F42 and 1 G40 motor. It was a nice flight, but I wouldn't want to imagine the rats nest of wires you'd have if you tried to cluster 50 motors. Also, what kind of amperage would be needed to fire all 50 at the same time?
-Aaron
thats totally interesting... I guess we all need to put our heads together to devise a non-leup based ignition method for FG clusters then.
terry dean nar 16158
oh, no! No those dangerous B64-4s! Anything over a A8-3 is a weapon.
No, wait, make that a 1/2A.
Just wait for the NPRM regulating pressurised liquids (water rockets).
Aaron wrote: > A few weekends ago, I clustered 6 F42 and 1 G40 motor. It was a nice
What igniters/battery combo didja use? Did all motors light?
Ted Novak TRA#5512 IEAS#75
Depends on how they're wired. In parallel the usual way? then on the order of 500 amps @ 12v for ignition--but the launcher better be prepared to withstand 2 or 3 times that, as burning igniters (but not bare nichrome wire) tend to continue to conduct at lower resistance and thus draw higher current.
Blasters don't connect a large number of initiators in parallel, but usually a combination of in series and in parallel. Most modern igniters will work reliably if wired in series.
Steve Humphrey
Depends on if you can still get ematches. Or use one Solar ignitor and FlashPan ignition.
I had to NIX a 2L water rocket at the last NIRA launch.
Say, what ever happened to that water rocket safety code we were promised...
You just gave me a great Idea. But I think I saw something in the NAR newsletter already on it. Well the NAR article was not exactly what I had in mind but it is close. The NAR article showed a device some kid thought up on how to light clusters. He had a large dia tube with a pre measured amount of black power or pyrodex. Then that tube had a bulkhead in it with a bunch of straws going out of it up into the back end of the motors. When the pre-charge was set off it shot flame up the tubes and lit off all the other motors.
Well my Idea is similar to that only different. I wouldn't tell ya'll and make it to sell but I would need an explosives licence to do that and that just defeat the principle of the IDEA of going around the ATF so I'll tell ya'll anyway and maybe some one else can add to this idea then some one else and soon we will have a real good working ignition system for clusters.
The idea is this... make a small motor that has APCP propellant in it. Obviously this motor would have to be less than 62.5 grams of propellant. Put a medusa like nozzle in it with tubes sticking out of the nozzles (probably would have to be part of the nozzle so they would not pop out. Now this small motor which I will call the igniter can be part of the launch pad arraignment. The clustered rockets would have to have a standard cluster configuration so that this igniter system would be interchangeable from rocket to rocket. Anyway this igniter motor would be facing aft end up with these tubes sticking up in a standard config. Then the rocketeer would take his rocket and lower it onto the igniter system so each of the tubes went into the clustered rocket motors. You would only have to light the one igniter motor and it would shoot nice and hot aluminum APCP up into the clustered rocket igniting all the motors at the same time.
Staging could be done the same way.
Hmmmm I think I'll try it. Any one else up for the challenge? Sounds fun. Lets report back on our successes or failures. That way all of us can put our heads together and finally end up with a nice working ignition system that we can all standardize and share with one another!
Hmmm. I own a mill and lathe. Maybe I could come up with the igniter motor casing and hardware and sell that. You guys would have to put your own propellant in it. Maybe you could stick a standard Aerotech reload grain in it. But making your own propellant would be funner. And since you are not flying the igniter you could use this homemade "igniter" it at a NAR certified flight.
If we work together our ingenuity can over come any obstacle that falls from the ATF wagon.
KT.
All igniters were hand-dipped magnalite igniters (purchased from PML years ago...it lasts forever) The igniters were all wired in parallel. The launcher was a relay system that the club has, so I can't give specs on it.
All 7 motors lit. The 6 F42s lit and came up to pressure very fast (as they're Blue Thunder, thats expected) and the G40 came up to pressure about 30 feet off the pad. It looked like it was air-started.
One of the club members has pics of it and once I get them I'll post them somewhere.
-Aaron
Have to insert and wire them at the pad, too, as you know those ignitors might "go off" at any moment.
Now THAT would be tragically funny. The government would be regulating Dihydrogen Monoxide.
Bill Sullivan
"I am the terror that flaps in the night. I am the neurosis that requires a five hundred dollar an hour shrink. I am Darkwing Duck!"
They already do.
The British government did for a while prohibit water rockets as dangerous explosive devices. They finally listened to reason.
Our own (US) NFPA regulations on toy water rockets came from the post Sputnik rocket fad era. One company sold a toy rocket powered by citric acid and baking soda--both edible substances--with a soft rubber nosecone and a long string to release the rocket from its launch pad. Several cities banned them as "dangerous projectiles."
What I find funny is the complete disregard of the FAR 101 four ounce propellant limit by water rocket enthusiasts...and the FAA. Dihydrogen monoxide rockets are already regulated--and not. When(not if)the gov't gets around to regulating rockets per se instead of just propellants all things rocket will be totally bizarre and tragically funny. The precedent has already been set in fireworks; no fireworks hobbyist wants to be caught dead with a paper tube colored red. Or too many paper tubes. Or the wrong size paper tubes. Guilt by presumption of intended use.
I can see the warning on the pop bottle label now: "WARNING! It is a felony to repressurize this plastic bottle!"
Gotta go now. My daily count of laws I've broken just passed 10,000... ;-)
+McG+
When was that?
the FAA really only cares about stuff that gets up into airliner airspace.
note to self: don't paint rockets red.
so how many paper tubes can I posess without being a 'fireworks nut'?
Yup, we've been there before: you're a spy if you're of Japanese descent (WWII) or own a radio transmitter (also WWII).
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